


i am the horizon that you ride towards

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [10]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Twins, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:48:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Tony’s mother and father die when he is sixteen.He doesn’t mourn his father, but when he sees his mother’s still, gaunt face, the dark colour of her skin washed out, there are tears in his eyes that falls, running down his face in rivers, matting in the collar of his jerkin.“Come,” Obadiah says, coldly, his hand landing on Tony’s shoulder.Tony cringes, but follows, mostly because he has no other choice – Obadiah, as his father’s second-in-command, had made his feelings clear; he had no intention of caring for his dead liege lord’s omega son, not when he could get to business and begin making alliances with Tony as the thing to be sold to some stranger like a horse.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600798
Comments: 53
Kudos: 224
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serinah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serinah/gifts).



> The title for this comes from one of Margaret Atwood's poems.
> 
> I cannot stress enough to mind the warnings for this fic – the subject matter is not for the fainthearted or for someone who is triggered by sexual assault and consent issues. 
> 
> This came out of a prompt that was posted in the POTS Discord server by Serinah. The OG prompt was: "Marriage AU. Medieval or some other alternative universe. Steve and Grant are twins. Steve is like Cap, Grant is like HydraCap. Tony is a wonderful young society butterfly who's sold into marriage by his own uncle the moment father dies. Tony is slightly underage at the time. Steve is abroad, fighting. Grant has his way with the wonderful pretty doe-eyed boy. Years pass and Steve comes back."
> 
> Written for the "hurt/comfort" square of the STB Bingo Round 1.
> 
> Title: i am the horizon that you ride towards  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194089/chapters/71678625  
> Square Filled: R4 - Kink: Alpha/Beta/Omega Society  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Steve  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: major character death, rape, underage content.  
> Warnings for this Chapter: forced marriage.  
> Summary: Tony’s mother and father die when he is sixteen.  
> He doesn’t mourn his father, but when he sees his mother’s still, gaunt face, the dark colour of her skin washed out, there are tears in his eyes that falls, running down his face in rivers, matting in the collar of his jerkin.  
> “Come,” Obadiah says, coldly, his hand landing on Tony’s shoulder.  
> Tony cringes, but follows, mostly because he has no other choice – Obadiah, as his father’s second-in-command, had made his feelings clear; he had no intention of caring for his dead liege lord’s omega son, not when he could get to business and begin making alliances with Tony as the thing to be sold to some stranger like a horse.  
> Word Count: 4,664

Tony’s mother and father die when he is sixteen.

He doesn’t mourn his father, but when he sees his mother’s still, gaunt face, the dark colour of her skin washed out, there are tears in his eyes that falls, running down his face in rivers, matting in the collar of his jerkin.

“Come,” Obadiah says, coldly, his hand landing on Tony’s shoulder.

Tony cringes, but follows, mostly because he has no other choice – Obadiah, as his father’s second-in-command, had made his feelings clear; he had no intention of caring for his dead liege lord’s omega son, not when he could get to business and begin making alliances with Tony as the thing to be sold to some stranger like a horse.

Obadiah shoves him towards his chambers. “I have sent the maids to draw you a bath. You will clean yourself with the oils and scents, and you will dress in what I have left you. I expect you to be ready and attired appropriately and waiting in the courtyard for our guests. If you are not, well,” he lets the threat hang, “it would be in your best interests to not tamper with this alliance in any way, Tony.”

“Yes, Uncle,” Tony says, gravely.

Tony flees into his chambers and closes the door, resting his forehead against it, breathing slow and deep.

His mother and father have only been dead for a single moon, but already he is meant to be bought and sold by some stranger in gilded armour, with no thought to his consent or his wants and needs.

“My lord,” Pepper says from behind him.

“It’s just us, Pepper. You don’t have to call me that,” Tony says, exhaustion setting in his voice, as he turns around and starts stripping out of his clothes.

An omega’s nakedness is nothing to be ashamed of before other omegas, and Tony steps into the bath, the hot water immediately scalding his skin. He sinks in with a sigh, resting his head over the edge.

Pepper scents the water with fragrant oils, and he smells rosewater and sandalwood in the billowing smoke that rises to the ceiling. He sinks in wholly, submerging every inch of his body, before floating upwards with a gasp, his hair dripping. Pepper takes a seat beside him and washes his hair, combing through the dark strands, all in silence, and then, she scrubs his back, his feet.

“What do you we know of this Steven Rogers?” he asks, resting his chin on his knees, which he draws close to his chest.

“Nothing much,” Pepper hums. “He was lowborn, originally; he came from nothing, when he saved the King from being killed by bandits. He was raised to a knight by the King, and then, once the rebellion was over, the King ousted loyalist lords and placed him as the lord of the Brooklyn Lands.”

“His family?”

“He has but a brother, a twin brother, I hear,” Pepper tells him. “Not as skilled with a sword as Lord Steven is, but sharper with his tongue. His brother acts as his castellan and in charge of the castle and the lands while Lord Steven is away at war. His mother and father are both dead. He has a few friends that he trusts, all of them knights at his hand. But you would not be walking into an established family.”

“And his temperament?” Tony braves himself to ask, licking his lips, even if he knows that it does not matter.

Alpha do as they please to their omega brides; if Steven Rogers wants him dead, wants to beat him black and blue for some perceived slight, he does not need to be a bad man to do it.

The world would forgive him for it.

“He is, by all accounts, a very quiet individual. He doesn’t not talk much, struggles with the courtesies that you have been raised in, shows that he is lowborn with his speech. He does not have much respect for the highborn. He is a man who has worked with his hands, my lord–Tony,” she amends when he sends her a glower over his shoulder. “He is not the perfumed lord that your father and mother may have bonded you off to, but he does not appear to be one that would treat you unkindly.”

“I suppose we shall have to see,” Tony murmurs.

He stands, allows Pepper to dress him in the clothing that Obadiah had bought for him, a dark grey doublet with white wolves embroidered, dark breeches and a cloth-of-gold half-cape to drape over his shoulder.

He looks at himself in the looking glass.

He wonders if Lord Steven will like him.

* * *

Tony stops fidgeting when Obadiah sends him a dark look out of the corner of his eye.

The gate opens, and horses bound through.

Lord Steven is at the head of his party, and he brings his horse to a stop, a great, heavy courser, almost as large as a destrier but looking much swifter. Lord Steven jumps down, briskly, feet landing in the dirt, and he sweeps his hand down the side of the horse, soothing it as it rears up in bad temper.

Another horse comes to a standstill, and Tony blinks in surprise when he realises that Lord Steven’s brother is the exact image of him.

Both men are tall, with golden hair, pale skin like milk, so much darker than Tony’s, and blue eyes, like the sea before a storm in the middle of summer. There’s a sly tilt to the brother’s mouth, while Lord Steve’s lips are turned down at the corners, as though he would rather be elsewhere.

Lord Steven approaches him, clasps hand with Obadiah.

“Lord Stane,” he says, and his voice is low, deep, solid.

His eyes flit to the side, and it takes him a moment, but a moment that everyone registers and deems to be deficient, but he eventually bows, as is the custom, his hand lifting Tony’s hand to his mouth to press a dry kiss to his knuckles.

“Omega Stark,” he murmurs.

Tony’s throat flexes.

He is handsome enough, tall enough, strong enough, all the things that omegas want in their alphas, but he wonders if the lord is kind.

He bows. “Lord Steven.”

“Well?” Obadiah says, slightly impatiently. “Do you like him?”

Tony lowers his eyes, pretends as though his shame is not colouring his face – what a terrible thing it is to be trotted around like a whore, like an omega for wares, as though he is not the child of a great lord, a trueborn child with the lands of the Stark at his back.

Even Lord Steven appears to be surprised, even upset at the audacity of the question. “I–”

Before he can finish, Obadiah pushes on.

“He is young, only six and ten, but he has had his first heat. He is a green boy, so you will find him tight. He has all the education a trueborn omega can boast of; he will look after your keep with skill. You would not be able to find an omega with such distinctions in all of the lands.”

Tony is hot now, the sweat damp around his throat, over his brow; his skin would be red if not for the dark colour of his skin at the way that Obadiah so blatantly and so publicly talks about the parts of his body most pleasing to an alpha.

“I would rather have this discussion in private,” Lord Steven says, coldly.

“And I would rather have him out of the keep within the next moon, but it is difficult to get what we want,” Obadiah says, with a shark’s smile.

Tony wishes he were an alpha, wishes he were strong enough, powerful enough to take up a sword, to run Obadiah through and to sit on the seat that was once his father’s, have all of those alphas who looked down on him, on their knees before him, kissing his hand.

It will never happen, but it is a lovely dream.

* * *

Lord Steven and Tony bond, the day after Lord Steve gives his assent to the match.

Tony’s consent is not asked, nor is it expected.

Although, there is a knock on his chamber door, late at night, once the feast is over and the revelries have spilt into the yard with drunken alphas shouting and fighting and heading towards the brothel for some warm company for the night.

Pepper and Tony exchange a look, and Pepper makes her way forward, a short blade in her hands. She flattens her free hand against the door.

“Who is it?” she calls out in a strong voice.

“Steve–Steven Rogers. I would like to speak to Omega Stark if he has not already retired for the night.”

“Lord Steven, this is not the way things are done–” Pepper begins, her voice stern.

“No,” Tony calls out. “I will speak with him.”

“My lord–”

“No, he has come all the way to me. It would be unbecoming to turn him away. When the dawn rises, I will be his omega.”

“And if he thinks to–”

“What?” Tony’s lips twist mirthlessly. “What, if he thinks to have me, well, he shall have all of me by this time tomorrow night. I want to hear what he has to say.”

Pepper gnaws on her lower lip, and with great lack of enthusiasm, she unbolts the door and pulls it open, revealing Lord Steven standing on the other side, his eyes on the ground, one foot turned up to the ceiling. He lifts his eyes, and Tony is struck by the resolute look in his pale eyes.

“Pepper, leave us,” Tony says, without taking his eyes off his almost alpha.

Pepper looks as though she is about to protest, and Tony shakes his head. Pepper sucks on her teeth, disapprovingly, with a cold look Lord Steven’s way, before she disappears around the corner.

“Would you like to sit?” Tony offers, gesturing to the chairs in front of the roaring fire.

“Yes, thank you,” says Lord Steven, licking his lips.

He sits first, and Tony lowers his head, as is done when an alpha and omega are in private.

“You may sit as well,” Lord Steven says, quietly. “You don’t have to… you don’t have to lower your head. I am no master, Tony.”

“But you will be my alpha,” Tony points out, fidgeting before he decides that sitting down would be the proper thing to do – his alpha has already given his instruction.

“You exist separately to me.”

_What a strange alpha this one is._

“I… I came to see you, because you did not say a word out there in the yard,” Lord Steven says, pale eyes fixed on him. “And then, when Lord Stane and I disappeared off into his solar, the discussion occurred between us and you were not involved.”

“As is done,” Tony points out. “I, my wealth, my body, my honour, all of me belongs to Lord Stane, now that my father is dead, and tomorrow, all of me shall belong to you.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Lord Steven says, immediately. “I… I suppose this is my lowborn way of thinking, but I thought we should speak before we spend the rest of our lives together, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on the match before we go ahead with it.”

“I have no objections,” Tony replies, without hesitating.

In truth, he has no objections; he will cringe at the thought of leaving his home, but if his parents had lived, he would have left his home, nonetheless; he is simply fulfilling the purpose which alphas have expected from omegas as long as alpha and omega have existed.

“Are you sure?” Lord Steven says, softly.

Tony shifts in his seat, uncomfortably. “Yes, I am sure.”

“Very well. I hope you know… well, if you tell me that you do not want this match, Omega Stark, I will go and speak to Lord Stane and end all discussion of it.”

“I want it,” Tony says, firmly.

Lord Steven looks dubious. “Very well. I… I will leave you now, Omega Stark, allow you to get some rest.”

Tony inclines his head. “Very well.”

Lord Steven leaves soon after.

Disappointment curls in Tony’s belly – he would have liked it if Lord Steven had stayed longer, but perhaps that was wishful thinking.

* * *

Tony and Lord Steven are bonded the next day in a ceremony. Their hands bound and oiled, with an old wiseman who speaks over them with vows and promises that they make to each other.

It is done, and Tony and Lord Steven are bonded.

There are revels afterwards, feasts and drinking, and finally, a bedding in which Tony is placed in Lord Steven’s bedchamber, without a stitch on, after he has suffered the groping of the alphas around him, poking and prodding at his naked flesh, making tawdry jokes about his legs and his nipples and his ass and his cock.

Lord Steven joins him moments later, thrust into the bedchamber as well, with scraps of his clothing hanging off his broad, muscled shoulders and hips.

“Are you alright?” he asks in a gentle voice.

Tony gnaws on his lower lip. “Yes, I am,” he replies, without betraying the fear he had felt when they’d hoisted Tony up into their arms and stripped him naked.

“Good,” Lord Steven says and bustles towards the roaring fireplace.

“Should we–” Tony trails off, unsure of how to phrase what he wants to ask.

Instead, he slides a hand across the sheets, hoping that he seems adequately seductive but not too wanton such that Lord Steven begins to wonder whether he has bonded with a virgin or a whore.

Lord Steven looks up, sees the hand on the sheets, and the way that Tony has stretched his body out, and something shadows over his expression.

“No,” he says.

Tony flinches. “Have I done something to upset you–”

“No, no, you haven’t.” Lord Steven comes towards him, stopping just short of the edge of the mattress. “I… you are young.”

“Yes,” Tony says, confused. “Lord Stane would have told you this. I am six and ten.”

“I have four years on you,” Lord Steven replies. “It would not… it would not be right. It would be immoral and irresponsible.”

Tony gapes at him, and then, he feels the offence like a flood of heat into his body, like he had swallowed a whole, lit much. “It would be _immoral_ ,” he says through gritted teeth. “It would be immoral?”

“You are, you are only a little older than a child. I could not, I _should_ not, Tony. It would not be right,” Lord Steven insists, like he’s making any sort of sense.

“But–”

“I accept that we have bonded, that our lives have commenced together on this day, but I will not come to your bed, not until you have reached eight and ten and you tell me that you wish for me to come to your bed. You must want it, or I could never dream of touching you.”

“But I _do_ want it,” Tony insists, and there is a lump forming in his throat. “I want it _now_.”

“But you are too young,” Lord Steven retorts.

“I am your _omega_. You have duties to me as well,” Tony says, his mouth lifting into a snarl.

“This is not one of them,” Lord Steven replies, gravely. “I will only touch you when you reach an age of eight and ten, and not a day sooner, and in the meantime, if your… want for me decreases, I will accept that.”

Tony is staring at him, wondering if he had walked through some gaping hole in the world without ever realising it – he waits, waits, hoping that Lord Steven changes his mind, decides to tup him the way that alphas are supposed to on their bonding nights.

Instead, Lord Steven tends to the fire, even as Tony climbs under the sheets, turns onto his side, and closes his eyes.

During the night, Lord Steven refuses to touch him, even when Tony braves a hand on his hip, his belly, and even, stretches lower, before Lord Steven grasps his wrist, not in a tight, punishing grip, but a warning one, nonetheless.

It doesn’t not happen, and then, when Tony wakes up as the sun peeks above the horizon line, Lord Steven is absent from the bed.

Tony wishes that the shame would swallow him whole.

* * *

When Tony leaves the Stark Lands, Obadiah issues an edict.

He tells him to act like the highborn omega that Obadiah knows that he can be; he tells Tony to do his duty, to not bring shame or dishonour upon his house.

Tony bows his head and promises in a quiet voice that he will uphold the honour and pride of his house, his family, his people.

Obadiah does not look convinced.

Tony sits in the wheelhouse on their way out of the Stark Lands; he would have ridden his horse, but omegas are not supposed to ride like alphas; omegas are supposed to prefer the propriety of the wheelhouse, so he takes to the wheelhouse.

It is a month’s ride to the Brooklyn Lands, to the castle which Lord Steven calls home.

Tony has never been beyond the Shield Road, and so, he gapes at everything with newfound interest, like a child.

At some stage, they decide to halt for the night at an inn.

It is there, where Tony meets his goodbrother for the first time.

A man kneels before him, his armour so fine and handsome that Tony blinks at it. He lifts his head, and Tony’s heart catches in his chest, as he thinks it is his alpha, when the man snatches up his hand and presses a dry kiss to the knuckles.

“Omega Rogers,” he murmurs, and Tony knows instantly that this is not his alpha, that this must be his alpha’s brother, his twin, Grant.

“Goodbrother,” Tony replies, his voice strangled.

“My brother has gone hunting, but I know that he will be a most attentive bond mate to you when he returns,” Grant tells him.

“I had no fears where your brother’s attentiveness are concerned,” Tony says, his voice taut.

Grant smiles, a mysterious smile that makes Tony’s heart pound in his chest (they are so very similar, his alpha and his brother). Tony opens his mouth to say something, but a quick look over his goodbrother’s shoulder silences him.

His alpha’s companion is standing there, a man named James Barnes, tall and fierce, with a metal arm welded to his right side, hair pulled back from his face.

Tony’s mouth is as dry as sawdust.

Strong hands grasp Tony by the shoulders, and for a moment, Tony believes it to be his alpha, remembering the way that Lord Steven had held him at their bonding ceremony, but then, he looks up at that sly smile, and he realises that it’s Grant Rogers looking down at him.

“I did not think I was the frightening kind,” he says, his smile growing.

“No, it’s–” Tony stops speaking.

Grant follows his eyes and finds Barnes standing there, staring at them. He leans into Tony, their shoulders knocking together (Barnes terrifies him so greatly, a powerful alpha figure, that he doesn’t even baulk at his goodbrother touching him with so much familiarity).

“Ofttimes Ser James frightens me as well, my dear brother. He is meant to be fearsome,” Grant tells him, conspiratorially.

“He does not mean it.”

Tony turns to see a beautiful woman, with dark auburn hair, a round face and green eyes, beautiful and clearly also an alpha, approaching them.

“You see, Ser James has a face that rests in anger, which makes him more fearsome than he intends to be,” the woman says, her eyes flashing like a cat’s. “Conversely, you might see him singing to cats, soft his heart is.”

Grant snorts. “Spoken like a loyal wife should,” he mutters under his breath.

“Better a loyal wife than a man determined to make his brother’s omega anxious,” the woman retorts.

Grant purses his lips, a split second of hatred entering his eyes, and Tony grinds his teeth, something sharp and anxious clamping around his body like a vice, as he is very much aware of him being in between two warring alphas.

The woman turns to him and bows low over Tony’s hand, as all alphas do with omegas. “It is lovely to meet you, Lord Anthony. I am Natasha, Ser James’ wife, and an old friend of Lord Steven’s.”

“It is very nice to meet you,” he demurs.

“Don’t believe a word she says about her husband, goodbrother. She has every need to protect his image,” Grant drawls. “But is important that Ser James has a fearsome aspect. He is the captain of my brother’s guards, in charge of all the security in the Brooklyn Lands. If the wicked do not fear Ser James, we have put the wrong man in the office.”

Tony’s throat flexes. “Then, surely, your brother has chosen the right one.”

Grant erupts in a gale of laughter. “Well spoken, my lord,” he drawls. “You are everything that I was expecting and more.”

The way that Grant looks at him, a needle-sharp, careful look, makes Tony shift on his feet in discomfort, but he pushes it away – this is his alpha’s brother; it would not do well to make him angry so early on in his bonding.

“What’s going on here?”

Tony stiffens, as Lord Steven approaches all of them.

“We were just introducing ourselves to your omega,” Lady Natasha says, her green eyes flashing, as she gives Lord Steven a smile, one that has a lot of teeth.

“Yes, brother, you seem to have found quite an omega for yourself,” Grant goes onto add.

Lord Steven’s expression flattens. “Yes, I appear to have found quite the omega.”

Tony cringes on the inside.

Lord Steven’s eyes soften. “Would you like to go riding with me, Tony?”

“Yes,” Tony blurts out, eager to foster some kind of relationship with his alpha. “Yes, I would like to go riding.”

* * *

The riding adventure doesn’t work out the way that he wants it to, because that night, when Lord Steven comes to bed, he doesn’t touch Tony.

It appears that nothing has changed.

Lord Steven climbs under the sheets, and Tony turns around, lying on his back. “They will think me barren,” he says, after a moment, braving the words.

“Excuse me?” Lord Steven replies, his brow furrowed, the question clear in his voice.

“If we do not…” Tony wrestles with the words, “if we do not consummate this marriage, if you do not bed me, there will be no child, and they will think me either barren or incapable of performing my duties as an omega.”

“I… I cannot imagine anyone so interested in what happens in our bedroom–”

“Believe me,” Tony says, coldly, “they will be very interested, and when months pass, and I do not swell with a child, their eyes will turn on me, and they will deem _me_ a failure. Not you; somehow, the alphas never get stuck with the blame.”

“I told you that I would not come to your bed–”

“–yes, if I did not want you to, but what if I said that I wanted you to,” Tony prods.

“You are too young,” Lord Steven insists.

“My lord, I–”

“Steve.”

Tony falls silent.

“We are, uh, we are bonded, and I assume that we will spend the rest of our lives together. If you wish me to call you Tony, then, I insist you call me Steve.”

“Steve,” Tony says, slowly, wrapping his tongue around the word. “Steve, I want you, I want to be with you in that way; I want to be your omega in all the ways possible.”

He gnaws his lower lip, and then, places his hand on Steve’s thigh.

“Tony,” Steve sighs and pushes his hand away. “No, Tony,” he says, firmly, his voice brooking no argument.

Tears sting at the backs of his eyes, much to Tony’s shame. “But why?” he demands, hoping he doesn’t sound petulant.

“Because you are too young. You are only six and ten. If we were to… if we were to consummate this bonding, if I were to take you in the ways that alphas take omegas, I fear it would make me the same as those alphas who go to the brothels, searching for children to satisfy themselves.” Steve’s face twists with revulsion. “I kill those men, Tony. If I see them, I kill them. I will not become one of them.”

Tony gapes at him, not knowing how to answer.

“You should sleep,” Steve says, his voice gentler.

He turns onto his side, giving Tony his back, and Tony knows that the conversation is over.

* * *

Three months into Tony’s bonding, after he has had a chance to settle in Steve’s castle, make friends with the servants, takes charge of the household, Steve comes to him.

He tells him that he has to go to war, that the king has demanded that the Brooklyn Lands call their banners and join King Nicholas against Alexander Pierce, the man who believes he is more entitled to the throne than the sitting king.

Tony stares at him.

“You’re going to war,” he says, flatly.

“Yes,” Steve says, softly, patiently.

“Why, though? The King… surely, he has other men, other lords that can lend their armies.”

“Not like me,” Steve says, grimly. “There are no men like me, Tony. Just me.”

Tony gnaws on his lower lip.

Steve sighs and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be safe here, I promise,” he says, earnestly. “I know, this isn’t what I wanted at all. We’ve… we’ve only just recently been bonded, and I confess, I’m not good at this courting business, but we should be able to spend more time together. This isn’t how I wanted it to go, but if it’s your safety that you’re worried about, you needn’t be worried. Bucky will have to come with me, of course, as the captain of my guards, and he’s my best soldier, but Grant will remain here. He’s a competent fighter, of course, so you’ll be safe with him, but he’s not suited for war. Natasha will also remain, so you will not be bereft without company either. I know that you and Grant get along quite well, so I hope that will make your days a little brighter.”

Tony doesn’t know how to tell his alpha that he doesn’t get along with Grant at all, that the look that Grant gets in his eyes sometimes when he looks at Tony, that violent, resentful look, terrifies him, features in the nightmares that he has when he closes his eyes for the day.

Tony knows who is believed when such things are given voice, and the newly bonded omega is never believed.

“I don’t want you to go,” he says, quietly.

Steve’s hand comes to cover the back of Tony’s head, and Tony likes the weight, feels his eyes flutter shut in response, and a shiver of pleasure curl in his head. Steve even leans forward, pressing his lips to Tony’s forehead.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Steve reassures. “I promise. I will be gone for a few moons, deal with this rebellion, throw Alexander Pierce back in the sea where he belongs, and before you even begin to miss my absence, I will return.”

Tony’s throat flexes – what can he possibly say to that?


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, bear in mind what I said about this fic, because the rape/sexual assault is in this chapter.
> 
> Written for the "hogtied" square of the STB Bingo - Round 1.

The day that Steve leaves for war, it is night; the stars are shining, and the wind is cool, chill enough that Tony’s nipples are jutting against his silk clothes – not that Steve would ever realise when his body forms itself in a way that should normally please an alpha (Steve appears to be the only alpha that isn’t attracted to him; his brother sure appears to be).

Tony tightens his robe around his shoulders, as Steve murmurs something soothing to his horse, before approaching him.

“All will be well,” Steve insists.

Tony lifts his head, sending him a false, thin-lipped smile. “I believe you.”

Steve’s hand fits against his cheek. “You have friends here, you know? There is no need for you to think that you have to do all of this on your own. You are a most competent omega, Tony, but even you require rest.”

Tony shrugs. “There are very few things that an omega like me can busy his time with, Steve,” he demurs. “I can assure that the things that I do enjoy doing are not things that you would ever approve of.”

Steve’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t push.

“Take care of yourself. I do not want to hear that you have not been eating or taking care of yourself,” he insists.

“I will, as long as you promise to take care of yourself as well,” Tony retorts. “Between the two of us, _you_ are the one who is going to war, Steve.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth tips up. “Believe me, Tony, war is one of the few things that I do well.”

Tony gnaws on his lower lip, and before he can overthink it, he stands up on his toes; he presses the flat of his palm against Steve’s chest, feeling closer to him than he has ever before, even on the day of their bonding; he can feel Steve’s heart beating, feels it in his hands, all the way down his arm and even in his chest if he believes it so – he leans up on his toes and presses his mouth against Steve’s.

For a second, he can feel Steve’s surprise, his mouth slack under his, but then, a groan rumbles through him, rumbles against Tony, and he kisses back, firm and gentle in equal measure, dry and without skill, as though he has not kissed many people – Tony would prefer it that way, would prefer an alpha who is as inexperienced as he is.

Finally, Tony releases him, and Steve looks at him, a dark look in his eyes.

Steve’s throat flexes. “When I come back,” he swallows hard, “when I come back, we will talk about this bonding of ours.”

Tony feels a thrill deep in his bones, settling in a bolt of heat between his legs.

“I look forward to it,” he says, breathlessly.

Steve smooths his hand over his hair, and Tony feels something loosening in his chest. Steve releases him and moves onto his brother, clasping hands with him.

“Take care of my omega,” he says, firmly.

“With my life,” Grant assures him. “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come, brother.”

“And I hope that you stay safe here,” Steve says, his voice gentle. “Take care of yourself, Grant.”

In the months that Tony has lived within this castle, he has not seen either brother particularly fond or attached towards one another – in fact, if it weren’t for the fact that Grant was a spitting image of Steve, Tony would have easily believed that it was James and Steve who were the brothers, with the care and attention and familiar banter that the two men shared.

But Tony imagines that they could not have been born within the same womb without some attachment to each other.

Steve leaves that night.

Tony cries himself to sleep.

* * *

It starts slow, what happens between him and Grant, unwilling on his part though it may be.

He sits in the library, when Grant arrives, picks a book off the shelf and takes a seat beside him. They read in silence, and then, when Tony finishes his book, he goes to return the book and find another one.

His arm stretches above his head, and he can’t seem to quite place it back where it came from.

“Here, let me help,” Grant drawls and comes up behind Tony, pushing up the length of his body against Tony’s.

It makes Tony uncomfortable to say the least.

He can feel the press of Grant’s erection against his hip, and he closes his eyes, willing the moment to end as soon as possible.

And then, it ends, and Grant hands him another book, a smile on his face like nothing had happened.

Maybe he’d dreamed it, maybe he’d overreacted, maybe this is just how alphas reacted when the virginity of an omega didn’t need to be protected (after all, no one but Steve and him know that their bonding has not been consummated; to the rest of the world, Steve has made him his omega in all the ways possible, and perhaps, this is how alphas acts with omegas who don’t need to be virgins).

“I think you’ll like this one,” Grant says, earnestly.

Tony nods, dazed.

There’s something unpleasant churning in his stomach.

* * *

It’s never anything serious, never anything that Tony finds completely and utterly objectionable, and therefore, it is very difficult for him to say that Grant has acted beyond the bounds of propriety.

Most of the time, it is all very innocuous, and Tony finds himself second-guessing his hysteria, his discomfort; after all, Grant is his goodbrother, his alpha’s twin brother.

How could there possibly be something untoward about the way Grant acts towards him?

Sometimes, at dinner, Grant is deep in his cups, and he puts his hand on Tony’s thigh.

Tony shoves him off, an angry word on the tip of his tongue, but Grant just laughs it off, tells him that he was so beautiful in the moonlight that he couldn’t help himself.

Whatever Grant does with him, it is of this nature.

He leers at Tony when he sees him working, eyes scraping over him like Tony was a piece of meat or the kind of omega that one finds at a brothel.

He makes suggestive comments about how Tony intends to spend his next heat without his brother there to make it all better.

He tells him vulgar stories of alphas and omegas engaging in lewd behaviour and pretends that they are just jokes, and that it is Tony that needs to let go of that damnable chasteness of his, when everyone in the lands know that there is no possible way that Tony could still be a green boy.

He touches Tony constantly, a hand on his thigh, on the small of his back; sometimes, he runs his hand through his hair, and when he’s feeling particularly brave and untouchable, he runs his thumb over Tony’s lip.

Tony aches to open his mouth, to tell someone how uncomfortable this makes him, this unwanted attention by a man who should be family to him, but he has no friends here, no Rhodey, no Pepper, no one that he can trust – Natasha is there, and sometimes, when they speak about household things, he thinks she knows there is something going on, that there is something that he wants to talk about, but he’s too scared to bring it up, in case she thinks that he invited this sort of behaviour on himself, that he himself had acted improperly with his goodbrother, which led to Grant believing that he could behave this way and his attentions would be welcome.

It all comes to a head, when one day, he walks into the library and is greeted with Grant bending some serving boy over one of the tables.

The two are in full view of the open door, and Tony doesn’t know how to react. Grant has his hands on the boy’s hips and is thrusting ferociously, making quiet little grunts with each snap of his hips. The boy is gripping the edges of the table, crying out, his face matted with sweat, twisted up with pleasure.

Tony hadn’t known that omegas could feel such pleasure at the hands of an alpha, had believed that it was something uncomfortable and necessary for an omega but the satisfaction of the encounter all belonged to the alpha and not the omega – the act of fucking was for the purpose of having babies for the omega, and nothing else.

Clearly, Tony’s knowledge needs to updated.

Grant looks up at him at the sound of the door opening, and this is where he should stop, where he should withdraw immediately, maybe even blush a little, and the boy should leave, should run out of the room, terrified of the possibility that Tony will throw him out of the castle for his obscene behaviour.

But no, none of those things happen.

Grant keeps going, keeps thrusting; in fact, the movements of his hips become harsher, rougher, and the boy whines low in his throat, louder and louder.

Grant’s eyes never leave his.

He slides his hand up the bony spine of the boy, and it fists in the boy’s hair, tugging his hair up.

That’s when the boy sees him.

He baulks immediately, and that’s how Tony knows that this picture is odd, that it’s not just him who finds this picture horrifying and distasteful. The boy tries to protest.

“My lord,” he pleads, looking over his shoulder at Grant, “please, Lord Anthony can see–”

“Shut up,” Grant says, gruffly.

He pushes the boy’s head back into the table and stares straight at Tony, with a smirk curling the edge of his mouth, as he finishes, three thrusts later, letting out a low groan with his release.

Grant withdraws from the boy, and the boy stumbles, clearly weak-kneed, gathering up his clothes, dressing quickly, and rushing past Tony, who plasters himself against the door frame in an attempt to avoid the two of them touching.

Grant, though, Grant reacts in a much more placid manner, goes about dressing himself calmly, tucking his cock back into his breeches, as though this is normal behaviour for him, between goodbrothers, and he takes a seat, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“My apologies, Tony,” he drawls. “I did not expect to see you here at this time; otherwise, I would have… relocated for my liaisons.”

Tony purses his lips, and there’s rage now, rage burning hot and fast, lumping up in his throat. He turns on his feet and storms away from the library, before he says something he regrets.

His alpha would not like to come home from battle only to find that his omega had slain his brother.

* * *

That night, he cannot sleep, continuing to think of what he had walked in on earlier that day.

He sits up on top of his featherbed, staring at the empty, clean wall, and then, he reacts. He slips off the bed, finds his robe, throwing it over his shoulders and tucking it in front of him, tying it at the waist.

There’s a knot in his belly, hot and sweltering, as he makes his way through the corridors of the castle, until he comes across the door to Grant’s chambers. He raps his knuckles on the door, tapping his foot impatiently, until it finally opens, revealing Grant on the other side.

He’s a little sleep-rough, rubbing at his eyes, and he’s only wearing smallclothes, his chest bare and his legs naked until the middle of his thighs.

Tony pretends like that doesn’t affect him, pretends like he’s not imagining Steve in such a state, but in their bed, those broad, pale hands running all over his body.

“Tony, what are you doing here this late at night?” he asks, resting his hip against the door frame.

“We need to speak urgently,” Tony says, briskly, pushing past him so that he can enter Grant’s chambers, preferring that no one can hear their argument.

Grant closes the door behind him.

“What did you want to speak about?”

Tony purses his lips thin. “Your behaviour, it must change. It is not welcome,” he says, sternly, his hands on his lip.

Grant lifts his eyebrow. “What behaviour is that?”

“The touching, the innuendos, the lewd japes, and most of all, what happened this afternoon. Such activities should not happen in a library, and the appropriate thing to do on your part, when you realised that I was standing there, was to fix yourself up and to leave. Instead, you decided to shame me by continuing with your… exploits.”

Grant smiles, a slow, lascivious thing that makes something curdle in Tony’s gut. “I already apologise for what you walked in on, Tony. It shan’t happen again.”

“And the other things?” Tony says, stiffly. “I do not know what impression I have given you, Grant, but I have no interest in taking you upon what you are offering. I am a bonded omega, and my body belongs to my alpha, _your_ brother. It is unseemly, the things that you say to me.”

“Is that so?” Grant murmurs and walks over to him. “Are you really pretending that you don’t want it, after all of these moons?”

He touches Tony’s cheek, and Tony bats it away.

Grant clucks his tongue. “Come now, Tony, don’t play hard to get.”

“I’m not playing at anything,” Tony snaps. “I apologise if I have made you think that such attentions are something that I might be interested in, but that is not what I intended and that is not how I feel. I will be faithful to your brother, and your behaviour is inappropriate. It must stop.”

“My brother.” Grant’s face shifts into an expression of sheer loathing. “You mean my brother, who can’t bring himself to fuck you, his omega?”

Tony colours. “That is none of your business.”

Grant snorts. “My brother, who has everything, love and stature and loyalty and wealth, when I, for the crime of having been born sheer minutes after him, must wait for scraps,” he says, venomously. “He doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve all that he has. He doesn’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Tell me, Tony, doesn’t he disappoint you at all? He travelled all the way from Brooklyn to your home to _buy_ you, I might add – it’s not as if there was some great love story there either – and he brought you to this unfamiliar place, and then, refused to touch you, all because he thought you were a child. Months passed where he gave no attention at all, and then, he left, left _you_ alone here without a friend to go and fight another man’s war. Is that the character of a man that loves you?”

“What happens between your brother and I is between us alone. You have no right to comment on it,” Tony insists, the air tight in his chest.

_Steve doesn’t have to love me. He just doesn’t have to hurt me, and you would hurt me, you would ruin me._

“Oh, please,” Grant scoffs, derisively, all sharp-cut contempt on his handsome face. “Even after everything, even the sheer disdain that my brother has shown you, the lack of care or decency, you would still continue to defend him to my face. You are clearly much stupider than I thought you were.”

“And you are overstepping,” Tony growls, his voice low, finding his courage somewhere.

Grant’s expression changes, then, and Tony tastes the danger in the air before he senses it.

“I rubbed my cock all over you, and you didn’t say a word,” he says, his voice smooth like a slow honey drip. “I touched your thigh, and you didn’t say a word. I told all kinds of stories about what I liked to do to all of those omegas in the brothel, and you walked on by, and this morning, I fucked that peasant boy right in front of you until I came, didn’t take my eyes off you for a second, and you didn’t attack me to defend your precious propriety. Don’t tell you that you are a most chaste omega, Tony. You have shown yourself to be quite the opposite.”

He spits the words out like they offend him.

Each thing that he says tightens the knot in Tony’s throat, and it’s as he feared, that his dread and his anxiety, which had prevented him from objecting to his goodbrother’s alarming behaviour, has now placed him in a situation where he has no excuse, no protest.

“And now, you come here, to my chambers, in the middle of the night, wearing that robe and not much else under it, to accost me over my supposedly _unwelcome_ behaviour. Did you really think that I would believe that bullshit?” Grant demands.

Tony swallows thickly. “I don’t want it. I don’t,” he says, weakly.

He doesn’t.

He was just scared, he swears; he was scared no one would believe him, and now he knows, no one will.

Grant chuckles, a dark sound that has the pit in his belly opening wide. He comes closer, and Tony has the sudden urge to back away.

So, he backs away, his eyes scouring the chambers to find something to use as a weapon.

“I don’t believe you,” Grant tells him, his voice soft. “I think you’re just like all of the other omegas that I know, desperate for a good fuck and not knowing where to get it. I can promise you, my brother sure won’t give it to you. He’s as green as you are, and I know what omegas are like, dear Tony. I know they pretend to be virtuous creatures, but once you get them into bed, they become sluts. You need a firm hand, an alpha who knows what he’s doing. That’s me. I can give you what you really want.”

“I don’t want it,” Tony whispers, and then, with a surge of courage, he picks up a penknife that he sees on the table against the wall, brandishing it like a sword. “I don’t want you. I want Steve, and he’s the only alpha that I’ll ever want. I didn’t want _you_ , Grant. I wanted you to stop–stop harassing me the way that you’ve been doing, and that’s the only reason that I, I even came here tonight. You’re wrong. I don’t _want_ you. You mistook fear and discomfort for lust, but that is on _you_ and not on me.”

“There’s no reason to hide anymore, Tony. There’s no reason to pretend.”

Grant comes towards him, and Tony swipes out, clumsily, with the pen knife. Surprisingly, it makes contact with Grant’s shoulder, slicing a clean line from the edge of his arm to the raised bone of his clavicle.

Grant hisses, clutching at the bleeding wound.

Tony’s hand is shaking, but he maintains his grip on the knife. “Don’t touch me,” he says, fiercely. “If you touch me, I will kill you.”

“You fucking whore–” Grant snarls, and his backhand snaps across Tony’s face.

Tony falls onto the bed, and the knife rolls across the unmade sheets. He grapples for it, but Grant is on top of him before he can think, hands around his throat, choking him. Tony fights back as best as he can, kicking out. Grant is momentarily stunned when Tony’s foot catches him in the ribs, but he manages to climb full on top of him, knees pinning Tony’s legs down, hand over Tony’s wrists, pinning them above his head.

“You stupid fucking cunt.” Grant’s free hand tugs at the knot of his robe at his waist. “I was hoping that you would come to me. In fact, when I heard the knock on the door, and I saw you on the other side, I thought you’d come to your senses. I thought you’d realised that we could be good together, but clearly you’re just another bitch who doesn’t know his place.”

Grant’s hands are touching him everywhere, and there are tears stinging at the backs of Tony’s eyes, as he desperately tries to fight him off.

“Things didn’t even need to change,” Grant goes onto say, as he spreads Tony’s legs wide, fitting himself between them.

Tony can feel it, feel his erection, pressing up against the dip between his thigh and his hips – this isn’t how it was supposed to be.

“After all, Steve and I are brothers, and brothers are meant to share; so, what if we shared an omega between us? If you’d grown big with my child, Steve would have no other option but to claim it anyway; after all, it would be his kin as well, and no one would ever be able to tell that we’d put horns on him. There would be no shame, because there would be no risk that the child wouldn’t look like Steve.”

Grant’s fingers slide between his legs.

Tony’s eyes roll towards the ceiling, and something deflates in his chest; his legs and arms turn to stone, and he stops thinking, stops listening.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Tony. You’ll realise after this that everything’s fine, that your honour doesn’t lie between your legs. Hell, Steve doesn’t even have to find out. If you want it to remain secret, I’ll happily acquiesce. In fact, it’s much better that way, having to steal away for a few moments.”

Grant mouths at his throat.

Tony feels the slickness of his spit against his skin and has the sudden urge to vomit.

“I thought of doing this to you the moment I saw you in that courtyard of your castle. Not like this, of course. I didn’t want it to have to come to this, but I wanted you,” Grant says, hungrily. “I thought about fucking you, the way you’d look when my cock was inside you, the slick you’d leak, and yes, this isn’t how I wanted this to happen, but I’ll take what I can get, especially with you being so fucking stubborn.”

Tony finds enough strength to say, “You won’t get away with this,” quietly.

Grant has the audacity to laugh at him. “Won’t I?” He leans in, so that Tony can see the dark, satisfied look in his eyes, still as pale as Steve’s. “I dare you to go outside and tell everyone what I’ve done to you. Do you really think they’ll believe you?”

Tony remains silent, bites down on his lip when Grant slides two fingers into his body, dry as a bone.

“Face it, Tony, you’re a newcomer, an outsider, a stranger. Anyone you tell will only think that you’ve cuckolded their lord, the one they respect so greatly. And should you burden my brother about this encounter when he comes from war, I shall simply tell him that you made the advance on me, and that I tried my best to deny you your desires, that I pushed you away, but that you were most insistent and I thought it better that you slake your lusts with me instead of some peasant in the village that would only shame him when he returned and found out what you had been up to while he was gone. You do not have his ear the way I do. Besides,” he says with immaculate confidence, “I am the lord’s brother; he can never be rid of the bond that exists between him and I, and all he has to do is see your head on a spike outside the castle’s gates and find another omega who _won’t_ spread their legs for me. You have no allies here, Tony. Only me; let me do what I want with you, and I swear, on my honour, that I will protect you.”

“You have no honour,” Tony rasps, grinding his teeth as Grant replaces his fingers with his cock and begins to thrust.

The pain is unbearable, flaring hot between his legs and stretching up into his spine and his throat, and there are tears in his eyes, leaking out steadily from the corners. He grits his teeth, refusing to allow Grant the satisfaction of hearing him shout.

“Is that your final answer, Tony?” Grant asks, disappointed.

Tony glares at him with enough heat to strip bark off a tree.

“Have it your way then.”

Grant looks displeased and thrusts harder, his hands tight on Tony’s hips. Tony’s body rocks with the force of the movements of his hips.

His eyes find the ceiling again; he ignores the way that Grant leaves stinging bites all over his body; he ignores the snap of his hips between Tony’s thighs, the solid, agonising pressure and girth of his cock inside Tony’s body, and he just prays that Grant will finish up quickly and let him leave, let him escape to his room, so that he can pretend that this night never happened, that he was never so stupid enough to come to Grant’s room like this.

It ends quicker than Tony assumed it would; he thought Grant wanted to take his time, but clearly, whatever sick thrill he had gotten from Tony’s distress had dissipated eventually, and he comes, leaving a sore wash of heat inside Tony, when he withdraws. Grant gets up, looks over Tony’s naked body, the destruction he has left in his wake, and considers him with the same disinterest that one might with a corpse of someone they didn’t care about.

“You had best return to your room,” he advises. “We don’t want the servants to start talking. After all, if my brother were to find out, you would be swiftly thrown out of this castle without a stitch of clothing, if not killed.”

Tony sits up, ignoring the insistent throb between his legs, the pain that is almost a comfort to him, now that he knows that he is not insane, that he didn’t dream of Grant’s desire for him, that this, this awful thing, actually happened.

He picks up his robe, wraps his body inside it, as though it can protect him when it had just failed several minutes ago.

He spots the pen knife lying on the bed, and he wonders why he hadn’t seen it when Grant was raping him, wonders why he hadn’t thought to use it and open Grant’s throat from ear to ear instead of suffering him on top of him.

He thinks of using it now, thinks of how easy it would be to grab the knife, to stab Grant in the eye or the throat and watch his lifeblood leak out of his body until he was nothing more than a corpse on the floor.

But the urge turns to nothing as quickly as it ever was something – Grant was right; no one would ever believe him, no one would ever think he was the victim in this situation; no one would ever look at an omega and a dead alpha and not think that he had not done _something_ , _anything_ to lead him on.

Omegas are never innocent, never the victim in these situations.

So, he ignores the knife, wraps his arms around himself, ignores Grant and leaves his chambers.

When he’s safely inside the walls of his chambers, he cleans up as best as he can with the flask of water that sits on his table. He wipes off the sweat, the blood, the come that is leaking between his legs, all of it – it doesn’t help, doesn’t make him feel cleaner than he is, but it makes him stop feeling the sensation of Grant on top of him, and for now, that will do.

He lies down on his dry sheets and cries himself to sleep.


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "starvation" square for the STB Bingo - Round 1.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: graphic rape, depression, suicide ideation, attempted suicide, violence.

Grant continues to accost him, here and there, his lusts and wants clearly not having been slaked with one night.

He has him in the library, in the stables, and often, in his own chambers, so that there is no part of this castle that Tony considers to be a safe place.

Sometimes, Tony feels so low that he considers throwing himself out of a window, thinks that no one would mourn him, that Grant may lose his whore, but Tony will be at peace (it has been many moons since Steve was in this castle, and he must have found a camp follower or a brothel worker to spend his nights with, considering that he was at war, his blood was up, and it wasn’t as if he was able to find gratification with his bonded omega; Rhodey and Pepper would have forgotten about him without a single raven on his end).

He even climbs up to the ledge one night, deep in his cups, and sways, before the drop between the window and the ground frightens him and he retreats back to his bed.

He becomes listless, tired, weary, wandering about the castle like a wraith; he takes to his bed often, sleeps often, doesn’t eat much, to the point where Natasha starts spending the night with him in an attempt to make sure he fills his belly with something.

He hears what the castle says, of course; they think that he’s lonely, that he misses Steve so much that the loss of his alpha is finally withering his body.

Frankly, he’s glad that Natasha becomes his bed mate – it means that Grant can’t touch him in his chambers.

For a few moons, Tony has respite.

He starts to eat again, to smile, to talk, to read. He spends all of his time, if he can, with Natasha, and it means that Grant stays away.

All he wants is for Steve to come back; somehow, with those nights they spent in the same bed, even if they didn’t touch, he felt safe with him – he wonders if he thinks that because it’s easy to think, like he’s made up a false Steve in his head to cope with what Grant is doing to him.

Natasha has to leave, though, one day; she has to leave because her sister, Yelena, is ill, and Natasha is the only one to care for her. She promises that she will return as soon as possible, and Tony allows her to leave with a smile, even if the dread is opening a pit in his belly, as he embraces her goodbye.

Natasha looks like she wants to say something, and maybe Tony would prefer it if she did, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t say anything.

She leaves, and Tony is alone all over again.

That night, at dinner, Grant hands him a glass of wine, and there’s a glint in his eyes that tells Tony exactly what’s going to happen when the castle falls asleep.

He knows what’s going to happen, so he steels himself and hides a carving knife, typically used for slicing up meat, in his cloak, before returning to his chambers.

Grant will wait until the moon is high in the sky before coming to him, so Tony prepares himself. He readies the bed and the curtains, drains the wine in the flask in his room, and he prays.

What he is about to do is a sin of great efforts.

He will be dead by the time the night has ended and the sun is rising above the horizon line.

His lungs are in his throat when he stretches himself out like a cat on top of the bed, naked, waiting, allowing himself to be as alluring as possible, when he hears the door creak. Grant slips in between the shard of empty space between the door and the door frame.

“Did you make yourself pretty for me, Tony?” he asks, his voice like silk, as he undresses himself and climbs onto the bed. “It has been so long since we have been able to do this. That bitch Natasha hasn’t left you alone at all; in fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would think there was something untoward happening between you two.”

 _More untoward than raping your brother’s omega, over and over again_ , Tony thinks, bitterly.

He remains silent, though, as Grant settles on top of him.

“Did you miss me, Tony?” he murmurs, mouthing at Tony’s neck (not for the first time, he realises that Grant shies away from the bite on Tony’s throat that Steve had left on his body, their bonding mark; any true alpha would never dream of touching another alpha’s bonding bite – it would be a worse sin than coveting your brother’s omega). “I missed you. I thought about you every night. I can’t even fuck the whores at the brothel anymore, because all I want is you, wrapped around me like a vice.”

Tony grinds his teeth, thinks of the bliss that will find him by the time that this night is over.

Grant slides his fingers inside Tony’s body, still finding him dry – Tony is determined to never be wet for him; he can only ever be wet for his alpha (that’s a lie; sometimes, he’s wet, and he promises himself that it’s just his body failing him, that there is no sin on his part, that there is no part of him that wants Grant or his violence; it’s just his stupid, pathetic body).

“I’ve missed you,” Grant groans, and there’s a slick sound from where his hand is on his cock, getting himself ready. “Did you miss me, Tony?”

His fingers withdraw from Tony’s body, and the hand that was on his cock, wet with pre-come bands around Tony’s throat.

“I said,” he says, with an unforgiving tone, “ _did you miss me_?”

Tony blinks at him, and he only sees Grant; he doesn’t see Steve, he promises himself.

“I did,” Tony murmurs.

Grant smiles. “Good. That’s good. We belong together, Tony, we really do. I know the things have been hard with us apart these last few moons, but they will be better now, now that Natasha is gone, and you can be all mine.”

“Yes, things will be better now,” Tony says, dazed.

The head of Grant’s cock presses against Tony’s rim, and he bites down against the pressure, the soreness, the dryness, all of it, as he stretches unforgivably around his cock.

“Things will be better now,” he repeats, and then, he slams the blade of the knife into Grant’s throat at the same time the door to his chambers open, revealing a shocked, dirty Steve.

Blood pours out like a river from the gaping hole in Grant’s throat, covering him with something that tastes sharp, hot and metallic. The red sinks into his skin, into his hair, his eyes, his mouth, all over him, soaking into the sheets underneath them, and then, Tony, with strength that he didn’t even think himself capable of, pushes Grant off.

His body hits the ground off the edge of the bed.

Tony watches as he gurgles, clutching at his open throat, and then, he dies.

Tony’s eyes wander to Steve, still standing in the doorway, his eyes wide with horror.

He understands what’s going to happen next.

“You will want to send for your guards,” he says, reasonably, surprising even himself.

Steve’s eyes wander from his brother’s dead body to Tony, seated on his bed, drenched in blood.

“Why would I want to do that?” Steve replies, without missing a beat.

Tony lifts his eyebrow. “Perhaps you did not realise what just happened. I just opened your brother’s throat. He’s lying dead on the floor, as we speak.”

Steve’s throat flexes. “I can see that.”

“So,” Tony says, a frantic edge to his voice, “you will want to send for the guards, have me put in irons and taken down to the dungeons to await your justice.”

“Tony,” Steve says, his voice gentler than Tony had ever imagined it being, especially when considering the context, “what happened?”

Tony sends him a condescending look. “Does it really matter? I killed your brother.”

Steve takes a step forward, closes the door behind him, so that it’s just him and Tony, with a dead body lying beside them.

“I know you,” he says, quietly. “I know you not as well as I could, as my omega, but I know you enough to know that you are no killer, at least not one that is mindless and cruel.”

“He is your brother,” Tony snaps. “Surely you feel some measure of anger towards me for what I have done to your only brother.”

“I do. Do not think me unfeeling.” Steve approaches the bed, cautiously. “But you are sitting there, naked, covered in blood, and my brother is dead. Forgive me for thinking that there is more to this story than a cold-blooded, thoughtless murder.”

Tony is trembling in earnest now. “Just… get the guards, put me in the dungeons,” he pleads.

“No, not until you tell me what happened tonight,” Steve says, stubbornly.

“ _Just put me in the dungeons_!” Tony shouts.

“No!” Steve barks back at the exact same pitch. “Tell me what happened.”

“Fine.” Tony climbs off the bed, uncaring of his nakedness for the first time in his life, uncaring of what his alpha might think of him. “You want to know what happened.”

He sidesteps Grant’s body; he doesn’t feel anything towards the dead man anymore – he feels righteous, relieved that he’s dead; there is no guilt in him.

“You want to know what happened,” Tony snarls. “Your brother and I fucked.”

Steve stares at him, and his face crumples in horror. He drags his hand over his face. “Why…” he clears his throat, “and you killed him, because the two of you engaged in… because the two of you were together? That doesn’t make sense.” He purses his lips thin. “There is more to this story.” He closes his eyes. “Please, Tony, please, just… tell me all of it.”

Tony’s voice warbles. “I have told you the story. Your brother and I fucked.”

“No, no, you’re lying to me,” Steve insists, “or rather, you are keeping something from me.”

Tony glowers at him. “What is _wrong_ with you?” he demands. “I just admitted to not only _cuckolding_ you with your own brother, but also to killing him. What more do you want from me? What else will it take for you to run me through with that sword of yours?” His lips flatten. “What else will it take?”

“Is that what you want me to do?” Steve asks, patiently, his voice soft. “You want me to run you through with my sword.”

“Perhaps it would be better than you taking my head for my crimes in front of all of your people,” Tony replies, darkly.

“Tony,” Steve takes his hands in his, and Tony shudders a little on the inside, “Tony, just tell me the truth. Tell me what really happened here. I,” he closes his eyes, “I will sound awful for saying this, but I know my brother, I know what he is like. If you tell me what happened here, I will protect you. I swear it, I swear it on my honour, which may not mean much to you right now because I have failed to protect you so far, but I _will_ protect you.”

“I can’t,” Tony says, roughly, staring away from Steve’s pale, earnest eyes, so different to Grant’s, kinder, gentler, more decent. “I can’t say it, Steve. Not to you, never to you. I made this decision with the belief that I would not survive this night. I have come to terms with that, and I did not make the decision lightly; please don’t ask anything else of me.”

“I would not ever let you die so easily,” Steve says, with a passion that borders on madness.

“You don’t even _know_ me,” Tony retorts. “We were together for a few moons before you ran off to fight some others alpha’s battle. You have been gone for a year, Steve. You don’t know me. We are strangers. There is no need to defend me so ferociously. No one will reward you for it, I can assure you.”

“I don’t need anyone to reward me. All I need is for you to know that you have me on your side. Just tell me the truth, Tony, and everything will be fine. You don’t ever need to hide anything from me in fear of judgment.”

Tony closes his eyes, and the tears rise, unbidden. “Not this. You will absolutely judge me for this,” he whispers.

Steve touches his cheek, just his fingers, like he’s terrified that Tony will push him away (he wants to, he thinks he should, but Steve isn’t like his brother, Steve is kinder than his brother).

“I won’t,” he says, firmly.

There’s a pause when Tony doesn’t say anything.

What Steve does next surprises him, though.

He draws his steel from its scabbard, until the flat of the blade is seated in his upturned palms. He offers it to Tony.

“You take this, you hold this, and you know that you’re safe, safe with _me_ ,” Steve insists. “I haven’t given you many reasons to trust me, Tony, and if what I fear has happened here, you owe me nothing, but take this, take my sword, and if I judge you, if I treat you unkindly after you have told me the whole story, run _me_ through.”

Tony gapes at him. “What kind of alpha are you?”

“Not one that has been good to you,” Steve says, firmly. “Now, tell me.””

Tony can hear the thready, faltering beat of his pulse in his ears when he says, “your brother raped me, and this is not the first time he has raped me.”

Steve stares at him for a moment, unable to process exactly what he is saying, and then, his expression twists up in agony. He rubs his broad palm over his face, and his throat flexes.

“I fear I do not know what to say to you,” he says, quietly.

“I don’t think there is much you can say,” Tony replies. He hesitates. “Does this mean, well, do you believe me?”

“As I said,” Steve says, roughly, and there is a sheen of tears in his eyes, “I do not believe you to be a cold-hearted, cruel murderer. I would like to believe that you would not lie about such a thing.”

“I could,” Tony reminds him, and he doesn’t know how to explain this knot in his belly, the desire to be named the villain in this story so that he can finally be at peace. “I might have taken him into my bed willingly, and at the thought of you discovering what we have done, I killed him so as to spare me further dishonour.”

“Is that what happened?” Steve asks, patient, soft.

Tony considers lying to him, but then, his courage fails him, and he shakes his head. “No, no, it isn’t.”

“I thought so,” Steve says, quietly.

Tony gnaws on his lower lip. “What will you do to me now?”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath. “I suppose that I shall send for Bucky.”

Tony flinches and nods, bowing his head.

It is the least he deserves. Kinslaying is a great sin amongst his people – Steve is right to punish him, even after what Grant did to him.

“We will have to dispose of the body.”

Tony’s eyes snap to him. “What?” he says, breathlessly.

Steve grimaces. “You think I don’t know what my brother is like,” he laughs, harsh and grating. “I know what my brother was, Tony. Do you remember, before I left, I told you that only evil men lay with children? And that I kill those men.”

“You said that you would never lie with me until I was much older than what I was; otherwise you would become such a man.”

“So, how can I tolerate such behaviour in my own brother,” Steve says, misery pulling the skin tight across his handsome face. “You are still so young, and my brother _forced_ himself on you. He is twice the offender. You were right to take justice against him. But now, we will have to dispose of the body. If the rest of my people were to find out about what happened in this room, they would doubt you; they would consider you to be the equal sinner in all of this. I would spare you that.”

“But he was your brother,” Tony insists, unable to move on from that point.

“Yes, he was, and I will mourn him as my brother, but I will not mourn him as my omega’s rapist,” Steve says, his voice sharpening around the edges of those last words.

He hesitates for a moment before laying his hand on Tony’s shoulder, worried that Tony might react in fear or anger – after all, it makes sense, considering that he is the spitting image of the men that had raped Tony over and over again.

“I will get Bucky, and we will dispose of the body. I will send Natasha to you. With her help, you might clean up. I will come to you when it is done, so you know that you are safe. How does that sound?” he asks, gently.

Tony nods, after a moment.

It all sounds too good to be true.

* * *

But it happens as Steve promises him.

Tony flees into one of the side rooms in his chambers, when both Bucky and Natasha arrive, seeing the carnage on his bed, and the dead body lying beside him, their lord’s exact image pale and numb and blood drenched and drying over his front.

But they don’t say a word.

He wonders how much Natasha knew, then.

Between Bucky and Steve, they gather up the body on the floor, and Natasha wanders into the side room where Tony is hiding. She remains silent, as she helps him to his feet.

“I have sent for a bath,” Natasha murmurs. “You can clean up when it gets here. I suggest you go back into the room, though, when the maids get here, because then, they will see you covered in blood, and that will… result in questions that you don’t want asked.”

Tony nods, dully.

The maids come, Tony hides, and when they leave, he climbs into the bath, which is boiling, steam billowing from the top. It scalds at his skin, burns it, but he finds it somewhat comforting. He sinks down completely, disappearing under the water, and for a brief second, he wonders what would happen if he just didn’t rise to the top; would Natasha pull him up, would she just let hm die? It seems like such a sweet option.

His lungs begin to burn, and his cowardice wins out again.

He rises to the top with a gasp, his hair soaked, water dripping into his eyes, and he rubs at them.

“The next time you try to do that, I won’t let you,” Natasha tells him.

Tony doesn’t dignify that with a response.

He gets to scrubbing himself, until the water turns a pink-red with the blood that finally strips off his skin. He doesn’t stop when the blood is gone, though; he starts scrubbing at every inch of his body, all the places that Grant put his hands on. He focuses on his hips, his chest, his throat, between his legs, making sure to clean especially thoroughly there, until his skin feels red and raw and sore, but in a good way, in a way that he can be comfortable.

“I’m done,” he says, briskly, and climbs out of the bed, taking the towel that Natasha hands him, drying himself, rubbing where he’s already raw to make sure he wipes up any dirt that he didn’t catch.

“Tony–”

“I thank you for your help and for your company,” he says, faultlessly polite, “but I think I would like to sleep now.”

Natasha’s brow furrows. She hesitates. “Steve has asked me to stay with you tonight, if you would allow me to do so.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Is that because he thinks that I might kill someone else, or because he thinks that I might do something to myself?”

“Both, I believe.” Natasha pauses. “Can you blame him?”

“No, I suppose not.”

Tony climbs into the bed, which has been changed with fresh, clean sheets – it almost seems like a dream, after everything that has happened, to fall asleep in this bed, as though not an hour or two ago, Grant had slid into his chambers and climbed on top of him only to get a knife in his throat for his efforts.

The bed dips, and he knows that it’s Natasha who joins him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks, quietly, in the stifling, shuddering stillness of the room. “You could have, you could have _told_ me–”

“You’re a beta. Being an omega is very different. It means understanding that in matters of chastity, fidelity, basically anything that an omega does with that place between their legs, is always doubted. We are incapable of telling the truth. If I had told you what Grant was doing to me, what would you have done?”

Without missing a beat, she says, “I would have protected you.”

“I could not have trusted that,” he replies, his voice blunt. “I could not have trusted that you would not immediately see some fault in my actions. I do not know you, Lady Natasha. We are not friends, and I was glad… to have you in my chambers these last few months; you spared me a great amount of grief, but I could not trust that you would not go spilling the tale of my dishonour to everyone else. If… if Steve had reacted differently than the way he acted tonight, well, I would be dead.”

“Steve isn’t like that,” Natasha says, quietly. “He isn’t that kind of alpha.”

“Perhaps,” Tony agrees – it would be unfair if he doesn’t give Steve that much, “but I didn’t know that until tonight. After all, what alpha would side with their defiled omega over their own sibling. No, it is not done, and I could not be sure. So, I did not say a word to anyone. I was glad for your intervention, though, as unassuming as it was; it gave me some brief respite from Grant’s unwanted attentions.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, after a moment of thought. “I’m sorry, I should have realised that there was something wrong, that something was wrong. You suffered because of my negligence.”

“You cannot hold yourself to such an impossible standard,” Tony replies. “After all, you did not know what was happening.”

“But still–” Natasha cuts herself short. “My apologies, this is not about me. You have gone through something terrifying and horrific, and I should not be focusing on what I could have or could not have done. I… I want you to know that you are safe now, my lord–”

“Tony,” Tony says, before he second-guesses himself. “You have seen me naked and covered in blood. You should call me Tony.”

“Tony,” she says, softly, “you are safe now. Steve won’t let anything happen to you, and well, I am quite proficient with a knife myself. You have nothing to fear.”

But when Tony closes his eyes, all he sees is Grant on top of him.

* * *

The next morning, Tony awakes to the news that the lord’s brother’s brother has been found in one of the village brothels, with his throat cut open from ear to ear.

The castle is suitably shocked, and Tony hears the whispers.

The whispers die, of course, because in the end, everyone believes that Grant Rogers deserved his death, after all of the omegas he’d used and abused and hung out to dry ­– the sins rise to the surface, stories of terrible violence, of children that were destroyed in the womb because Grant couldn’t be seen with a bastard child and was determined to bond with an omega of great repute, of poor alphas that were silenced with threats when Grant refused to pay for an omega and instead chose one of the villagers that could not say no.

Tony’s name never comes up linked with Grant, which he thanks the gods for, but it doesn’t help knowing that he wasn’t Grant’s only victim, just his last.

Steve stomachs the accusations, the shame that lands at his doorstep with a stoic face, never letting an inch of emotion slip.

One night, they take their meal in Steve’s chambers and Tony asks him about it.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

His belly is full of wine, and there’s a certain confidence in his words that would never come without it.

“Doesn’t what bother me?”

“The things that they are saying about your brother.”

Steve swallows another gulp of his wine, before putting it back on the table. “Should I be?”

“I mean, he was your brother,” Tony says, hesitantly, “and he did awful things, and now, people are talking about them.”

“As they should, because he did horrible things,” Steve says, reasonably.

“But he was still your brother. You loved him.”

“I did,” Steve agrees. “I even mourned him, because I think that’s what you want to ask me, but I would never lay that on your head, Tony. My brother did unforgivable things to you. I have no right to ask for your comfort, your understanding, and nor shall I.”

Tony doesn’t have anything to say after that, because, while it is not the thing he should say as a highborn omega, he doesn’t want to comfort Steve, to understand his loss, only because it’s Grant, because Grant was a monster, and he doesn’t want to think of anyone that might have actually loved him.

They lapse into an awkward silence.

When the meal finishes, and the wine is drained, Tony places his palms on the edge of the table.

“Will you come to my chambers tonight?” he asks, his voice soft.

Steve startles, and his empty goblet falls off the table with a clatter. He doesn’t bother to pick it up; he stares at Tony, his eyes wide.

“What?” Steve clears his throat. “You want me to come to your chambers?”

“Yes, _yes_ ,” Tony says, firmly. “I think we have gone much too long without consummating this bonding. People will start to talk–”

“Oh, I think they’ll be talking about something else for a while now,” Steve says, heavily. “Tony, I won’t come to your chambers.”

Tony stares at him for a moment, and then, he realises, blinks away the stinging at the backs of his eyes. “Yes, of course, my apologies. I should not have offered such a thing… especially with what has happened. I completely understand that you may not want to,” he clears his throat, “it was inappropriate. You deserve… you deserve a lot better than me, Steve, and I should not have presumed–”

“Wait,” Steve says, when Tony clambers to his feet, tries to escape. “Please, Tony, please don’t leave like this. You don’t understand, you don’t understand what I mean. I don’t mean… it’s not _you_ , Tony. I mean, it is you–”

“I don’t want to hear this,” he says, shaking his head, clenching his eyes shut.

“No, you, you need to, because I can’t have you walking out of here thinking that it’s because of I don’t want you, because I’ve _always_ wanted you. You’re… you’re beautiful and intelligent and fierce, and you’re strong and full of pride, and I wanted you that very first moment that I saw you in that courtyard,” Steve says, with a passion that borders on madness. “But I’m… I’m eight and ten, and you are six and ten, and yes, two years doesn’t seem like that much of a difference, but it is to me, and you had never even left your lands before–”

“That does not make me a child,” Tony says, sharply.

“No, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. I thought… I thought it did. I thought I had to protect you more than anything else, and then, I came home, and you were–”

“Ruined,” Tony says, bitterly. “Defiled, despoiled, take your pick.”

“No,” Steve snaps. “No, you weren’t any of those things. I came home, and you protected yourself, while I was gone. You were protecting yourself, and I, I realised that you didn’t need me, not really, that you’d gone onto live without me, that you weren’t a child, that you were capable of protecting yourself.”

Tony’s brow furrows. “I didn’t protect myself,” he tells him. “I let him do what he liked with me; only when I couldn’t take it anymore did I take a knife to his throat.”

Steve doesn’t flinch when he puts what he did to Grant in such blunt words. “You protected yourself, because you stayed alive, because you didn’t let him win in the end. You were strong; I misjudged your strength, and I apologise for that. I should not have treated you like a child, and I should not have assumed to know better than you about your own body, but I was worried that you were doing it for the wrong reasons.”

Tony lifts his eyebrow.

“You wanted to bed me because that is what alphas and omegas are supposed to do; they are supposed to fuck and make babies together, and I didn’t want that to be the sum and total of our lives together, Tony,” Steve says, roughly, dragging his hand through his hair. “I didn’t want that to be all that we had together. Maybe that makes me naïve but… my parents fell in love with each other, and I wanted that as well. I wanted my omega to love me, and you didn’t love me. How could you? We didn’t even know each other, and you were… you knew you had a duty, and you were determined to fulfil it. I wanted more than duty, Tony. I wanted love. That’s why I didn’t touch you before I left for war.”

“And now? Now that you’re back, now that I have asked you to come to my bed?” Tony demands.

“Now,” Steve smiles, pain etched in all of the lines around his mouth, “now, I know that you can’t love me, that you’ll never be able to love me, and that’s fine, I understand that, I understand–” He closes his eyes. “I have the same face as the man who brutalised you for months. How could you possibly love me? But I know when you asked me to come to your bed, you were asking me out of duty. I want you to love me, and if you can’t love me, that is fine. Your… your value to me is not based on how often that you spread your legs for me, Tony, or the number of children that you bear. I do not see such things when I look at you, and I am fine. You do not need to feel bothered or required to attend to me in such a way. It would be unfair for me to expect such a thing from you. I _don’t_ expect it.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “You said that you didn’t think of me as a child.”

“And I don’t,” Steve insists.

“Doesn’t sound like it. In fact, it sounds like you are still making decisions for me instead of asking what _I_ want.”

“Can you say that you would be bedding me for the right reasons?” Steve asks, gravely.

Tony flings himself forward and presses his mouth to Steve’s. It doesn’t feel like the times that Grant had kissed him; Steve feels firm and supple and more than anything else, submissive. His arms are as stiff as boards by his side, as if he’s refusing to touch Tony, and when he pulls back, Steve’s face is as stoic as Tony has ever seen it.

Tony deflates. “You don’t want me, do you?”

“Not like this, not when you’re trying to prove something,” Steve tells him, his voice solemn.

Tony leaves the room, his stomach curdling in embarrassment.

* * *

For weeks, they don’t speak much.

They eat their meals together, but they don’t say a word, and then, Steve goes about his day, and Tony goes about his day, and they both retreat to different chambers at night.

Tony, often, at night, thinks about that kiss, thinks about how it felt to kiss Steve for the first time, the savagery behind it, the point he was trying to prove with that action – Steve hadn’t wanted it, and it terrified him that maybe, in some way, he’d learnt the act of fucking from Grant, and this was all that was left in him.

Steve hadn’t wanted him, and Tony had pushed him; Tony had pushed him, but Steve hadn’t faltered with his conviction, hadn’t forced him into anything, pushed back until Tony was fleeing, which he realises, only after the fact, that he would have, in the end.

Steve hadn’t forced him into anything, hadn’t acted like the alpha that he assumed he was, had let him do what he wanted, and then, let him run away when he understood what he was doing.

It was wrong, what he did, to force Steve into something that he was uncomfortable with, the same way that he had been uncomfortable with what Grant had did to him – that is a truth.

Another truth is that Steve could have taken advantage of him that night, and he didn’t, not just because he didn’t want Tony in that way, but because he understood things better than Tony did, understood what Tony didn’t want to understand.

Both can be true at the same time.

One night, he climbs out of his bed, dons his robe, much like the first night with Grant, but this time, there is a confidence to his steps that wasn’t there that other night, a freedom that came with the fact that he’d killed Grant himself, felt his lifeblood pour out all over his body, and watched him choke up his last breath.

He walks, slowly but surely, until he lands in front of Steve’s chambers. He knocks on the door, waiting with his belly tumbling all over again.

The door opens, and Steve is standing on the other side, in a robe – it’s enough of a difference from that last time with Grant that Tony finds the air coming easier into his lungs.

“Tony?” he says, uncertainly, making a smacking noise with his mouth, suggesting that he was in the throes of sleep when Tony had knocked on the door.

“You’re right,” Tony tells him.

“Very well.” He pauses. “What am I right about?”

“I’m not ready,” Tony murmurs. “Sometimes, despite my best efforts, I look at you, and I see your brother instead.”

Steve flinches, looking down at his feet.

“I don’t…” Tony closes his eyes. “I don’t _want_ to see him, Steve. I don’t. I don’t want him to ruin our lives, because that would be unjust. Him, who should have no effect on us at all. It would be unjust.”

“You’re right, it would,” Steve says, quietly.

“But what is unjust is also quite often reality,” Tony goes onto say. “And unfortunately, reality is where we exist.” His lip trembles. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life in fear. I don’t want him to take the rest of our lives together, Steve. That is something that I cannot abide. I _won’t_ abide it. But I can’t promise you that it is something that can change, the way that I feel, the way that I look at you, my fear, my disgust for myself, anytime soon. It wouldn’t be fair to you to stand here and promise that all was well, that I was ready to be your omega in every way, that I wanted to have children with you.”

“I would never expect you to,” Steve swears.

“That’s why I want this to work,” Tony says, and there are tears in his eyes, tears that he rubs from his eyes. “I fear that if I pushed it, pushed myself, pushed you, that we would crash and burn, and I want this to last, Steve. I want _us_ to last. I have never had anything, never had anything that could be mine, _just mine_ , but this, you, us, the family that we make together, I want it to be mine.”

“It is,” Steve says, pathetically earnest. “It is yours. _I am yours_.”

A little, hopeful knot forms in his chest, in his throat.

“If I ruin this, if I push too much, too fast, too quickly, it won’t be mine.”

Steve considers him for a moment. “So, what do you propose?”

“I can’t be with you like that _yet_. On our wedding night, you promised me that that would only happen between us when I was old enough and when I asked for it. I’m old enough, and I cannot ask for it yet. I might never be able to ask for it,” Tony warns, “but I will never stop talking to you about it. I will never _not_ be by your side. I will always defend you, and I think, because you have proven yourself already, you will always defend _me_.”

“Tony–”

“I want you to kiss me,” Tony says, firmly.

Steve’s brow furrows. “What?”

“I want you to kiss me. I am _asking_ you to kiss me, but only if you want to. That night, I forced you. I thought about what I wanted, what I needed, and I had no thought for you. I wanted to prove something, not only to you but to myself as well. I was foolish, because I thought I could not show any weakness, because I had to be strong. I was wrong. I can be weak. I am allowed to be weak. I am allowed to heal.”

“You are.”

“If you would like to kiss me, I would very much like it if you did,” Tony says, almost shyly.

“How would that…” Steve clears his throat, “would that help you heal?”

“It would be nice to be kissed by someone who wants to kiss me and whom I want to kiss,” Tony says, honestly.

Steve’s face sets in resolve and he nods. “I will kiss you then, and before you ask, it is because I want to kiss you. I have… I have thought about kissing you a lot.”

Tony colours in response, but he doesn’t hide his face like he might have before; he stares his alpha down, bravely.

“Then, kiss me,” he says, softly.

Steve swallows hard, and he wraps his arms around Tony, drawing him close.

Tony doesn’t fight him, doesn’t even think to fight him. He drapes his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and when Steve covers Tony’s mouth with his, Tony finds himself moaning, clutching at him.

He fists his hand in Steve’s robe, presses himself against Steve, and then, Steve moves away. There’s a new heat to Steve’s eyes, a heat that Tony hasn’t seen before but likes, wants.

“That was nice,” he offers. “That was very nice.”

Steve clears his throat. “Yes, it was,” he says, breathlessly.

Tony runs his tongue over the seam between his lips, which still throb, tingle. “I wouldn’t mind,” he says, carefully, boldly, tilting his chin up, “if you did that again.”

A grin splits Steve’s face in two, showing a row of straight, white teeth, which only serves to create a flutter in Tony’s belly. He draws Tony close again and kisses him, lazy, with ease.

Yes, this is very nice.


End file.
